News & Announcements

Princeton Instruments, a leading manufacturer of sensitive low-light imaging and spectroscopic instruments, applauds the recent work of Saulius Juodkazis, professor of nanophotonics, and researchers working at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia. Specifically, a line of nanoparticles in array was imaged and an extinction spectrum was detected without distortions thanks to the sharp focus and astigmatism compensation of the Princeton Instruments IsoPlane spectrometer utilized by the group. The project is part of the Melbourne Center for Nanofabrication (MCN), the largest nanotechnology facility in the southern hemisphere.

Recent advances in high-precision nanofabrication of 10–100 nm features on micro- and nanoparticles by electron beam lithography (EBL) and focused ion beam (FIB) milling create challenges for measuring the optical properties of such nano-objects. High-fidelity fabrication of arrays of nanoparticles with nano-features inscribed by FIB has been demonstrated [1]. Such arrays of uniform particles are required for sensitive detection of absorption and light scattering at low concentration of analyte (in gas/air or solution) by surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), a proven method of high-sensitivity detection. Arrays of nanoparticles can also be used to trap molecules and nano-objects at high-intensity-light locations (i.e., hot spots) on the nanoparticles [2].

Optical characterization of individual particles, as well as of arrays, via imaging (dark and brightfield microscopy) and spectral extinction measurements provide the first and most informative evaluation of the fabricated patterns and individual nanoparticles. Use of the aberration-minimized IsoPlane spectrometer with an imaging microscope was indispensable for results published in references [1, 2].